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Is there a way to find out when it is morning in your body?
Northwestern researchers said they found a new way to measure the time on the user's internal biological clock.
A new study published Monday in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America describes in detail a blood test that researchers can read the internal clock. In other words, it is possible to know when it is 6 am in your body while it is 4 pm. on a clock in real time.
The new test, called TimeSignature, measures 40 different gene expression markers and can be taken at any time of the day.
Rosemary Braun, lead author of the study and adjunct professor of biostatistics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, said the blood test could assess a person's biological clock in an hour and a half.
The researchers first drew the subjects' blood and examined which genes were higher or lower during the day. By monitoring the genes of people whose body clocks were aligned normally, they were able to establish an algorithm that could predict the time of day based on these patterns.
Kenneth Wright, a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder and director of his sleep and chronobiology laboratory, said it was a step toward a better understanding of biological clocks.
"It's a very important first step," he said. For example, in his lab, he has his patients come for at least seven hours and up to 24 hours, checking for saliva or blood every 60 or 90 minutes. This would significantly reduce the time and the necessary tests, he said.
"This is a significant advance in the development of tools so that we can more easily determine circadian time or biological time," he said.
Researchers have long sought to better understand the circadian rhythms associated with a variety of body systems.
"Everything from when you feel sleepy to when you're hungry when your blood pressure goes up and down," Braun said. "By controlling so many different things, it's not surprising that it has a huge impact on health."
The disruption of an internal clock can predispose a person to various diseases – diabetes, obesity, depression and heart disease have all been identified by links with circadian rhythm imbalance.
The impact of a method to better understand a patient's biological clock more quickly could have implications for drug dosage and even prediction of disorders and risk factors. Braun hopes that this new test will help researchers examine the impact of misaligned clocks on diseases ranging from heart disease to Alzheimer's disease.
Medications for everything from blood pressure to chemotherapy treatments have their best impact at different times, she said. "With a simple blood test, your doctor may be able to tell you that the best time to take your blood pressure is now," she said.
Of course, this could also help better treat people with sleep disorders.
"You can imagine that someone could come into his doctor's office after a sleepless night because he has a new baby or that he's working shifts," she said. .
The researchers note that no method up to now, including theirs, has been tested on a wide range of conditions and diseases.
"More research is needed," said Braun. "Ultimately, we plan to use this mechanism as a diagnostic and monitoring tool."
Twitter @byalisonbowen
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